It rears its ugly head.  There has been one persistent problem that hasn’t gone away after 2 visits to the mechanic.  In defense of the mechanic, this problem hasn’t been the primary reason for bringing it in the last couple of times.  It’s always been an “Oh, and can you take a quick look since you have the car anyway” type of request.

The problem is with the coolant.  The blasted light has been blinking for months now and it’s clear that there is a coolant leak (slow early on, very quick nowadays).  The 1st time I brought it in they noticed a break in the tubes and were able to fix that pretty easily.  After a top-up of fluid that seemed to have solved the problem.  But a few days later the light came back on and since I had to bring it in again (due to what I like to call the “Ignition Coil Incident”) they took another look and suspected there was a blockage somewhere in the system.  They pressurized the system to remove any air pockets and this seemed to do the trick for a few days.  Then the light came back on again.  I was tempted to cover the light with electrical tape and live with it until this past Monday:  there was no heat coming into the seating compartment and when driving the car at highway speeds the temperature gauge was spiking.  Sounds like all the fluid has drained from the car.  I’m betting there’s a big puddle in my garage right now.

I’m taking the car into the shop at lunch to at least get a top-up and schedule an appointment.  Depending on the problem and the $$ to fix it this could be the last straw for the bane of my existence.